Section 12 numbers on the rise

LEOMINSTER -- The courts can involuntarily commit people whose family member, doctor, spouse or local police officer believe are in immediate danger due to substance use or mental illness.

Last week, local police went to an Eden Glen home to serve Sean K. Hill, a warrant of apprehension per Massachusetts General Law section 12, under which the severely mentally ill may be involuntary hospitalized for up to three days.

Hill, 33, barricaded himself in his home. Before long, the house was surrounded by dozens of members of law enforcement, some wearing camoflauged tactical gear and holding rifles.

A fire was intentionally set inside the home, and Hill did not come out. Three hours later, Hill was discovered dead in the home. He had no weapon, police said, contradicting early reports by neighbors of gunshots in the area.

"He didn't need to die," Hill's mother, Christine Gagne Piermarini, wrote in a post on social media.

Hill was one of a growing number of people who are ordered by the courts to be civilly committed in the Twin Cities, and statewide.

A similar trend was observed in Leominster, where in 2010, 69 civil commitment orders were requested. By 2016, that number soared to 139, more than doubling.

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Three people were being held at Fitchburg District Court awaiting a civil commitment hearing on Wednesday afternoon, said Judge Christopher LoConto.

When LoConto began his judgeship in the early 1990s commitments for drug detoxification, namely off of opioids, were much more rare, he said.

Now, requests for commitments to detoxification programs under Massachusetts General Law section 35 are at least a weekly affair.

"We're seeing a ton," he said. "The last thing you want is someone changing their mind, leaving the court and overdosing."

If a judge finds cause to issue a civil warrant police are called to deliver it. Fitchburg police Capt. Harry Hess said every officer is trained on delivering section 12 and section 35 warrants.

When the target of the commitment order is located, a process made more complicated if a person is homeless, they are handcuffed and taken into custody.

During what Hess called a "soft booking," process the personal belongings of those summonsed or brought to court under the civil orders are inventoried.

The civilly committed are held in separate rooms from others at the police station suspected of committing crimes, said Hess.

After booking the person is taken to District Court, where they are by state law assigned a lawyer then appear before a judge.

LoConto said hearings for civil commitment orders are carried out in open court. He weighs the opinions of a medical practitioner, sometimes a family member who testifies, and at times the person for which the civil commitment order was requested.

"There are people who come in and say, yes, I need help, but often there's the flip side, and they believe their loved ones have turned on them," he said.

A judge must determine the person of immediate risk of serious harm to order mandatory commitment for a period up to 90 days on section 35 orders, said LoConto.

Where people are sent varies by gender and based on whether beds are available at an addiction treatment center.

If no beds are free, men are sent to the low-security prison in Plymouth. Statewide, the number of section 35 filings against adults has risen 83 percent from 2010 to last year, according to the Executive Office of the Trial Court.

At Plymouth, the about 200 beds for those in drug detoxification are almost always at capacity, according to Department of Correction spokesman Christopher Fallon.

Those in detoxification at Plymouth do does not use Suboxone or methadone, he said. Section 35 commitment, said Fallon, is a last-ditch attempt for families who have exhausted all option to keep a loved one safe from harm due to drug or alcohol abuse.

"When someone gets sectioned, it's because the family is at the end of the rope," he said.

The men in detox at Plymouth stay in two-person rooms with others in the program, guarded by the correctional officers who also oversee about 20 minimum security prisoners who live in a separate part of the building.

Per Massachusetts General Law Section 12 a judge who determines a person is at risk of causing serious and immediate harm to themselves or others due to mental illness may order emergency hospitalization for up to three days.

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